Chapter 5
Third person pov
Part I
No one remembered when the tradition began—only that it had never ended.
Blackthorne Academy had always fed on its students. Not metaphorically or symbolically. Literally every decade, the school demanded bodies, and every decade the administration pretended ignorance while selecting someone to carry out its will.
They called him the Head Prefect. Forgetting his name Harry Lockwood. But before he became the leash, he was just a boy, his name used to be spoken softly. Teachers described him as disciplined, polite, frighteningly intelligent. Students said he was distant but fair. He enforced rules without cruelty, corrected behavior without raising his voice, and never abused power. That was why they chose him. Blackthorne didn't pick monsters, It made them.
He arrived at the academy at sixteen, already carrying grief like a second spine. His family had sent him away not for excellence, but for protection. Strange things happened in his town—children disappearing, adults forgetting names, memories unraveling like rotten thread. Blackthorne promised safety, prestige, and silence. What they didn't know was that the school had already marked him.
From the first night in the dormitory, the walls whispered his name, the first assembly, the chandeliers creaked as if bowing, the punishment he handed out, something unseen watched him closely. He felt it before he understood it, The school wanted him.
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Part ii
One day the badge was empty in the glass case. The next day, his name appeared on the notice board.
He hadn't applied.
That night, three faculty members summoned him beneath the east wing—below the library, below the sealed classrooms, below the place where screams were said to echo long after they stopped.
They told him the truth in pieces. Blackthorne was not a school. It was a containment site. A feeding ground, a living entity older than the land it sat on. It survived on fear, guilt, and broken potential. Students who carried too much darkness—or too much light—became unstable and dangerous with necessary sacrifices.
The Head Prefect was not an honor, he was the leash. A weapon disguised as authority, a human hand wrapped around the throat of the school's hunger.
"If you refuse," they said calmly, "the academy will choose someone else, someone weaker, the one who won't survive the role."
He was threatened, so he accepted.
They carved the oath into him, with blades—and with words that burned into bone.
From that night on, he felt the school inside his veins. Its corridors stretched when he was angry. Its lights flickered when he lost control. Doors unlocked for him even when sealed. Shadows leaned toward him like loyal dogs.
But there was a price...He could never leave the grounds and could never refuse a name once the school offered it. And every death fed something inside him that he could not starve. The leash did not protect the hand that held it.
By day, he was immaculate, perfect posture, cold eyes, voice steady enough to freeze arguments mid-sentence, students feared him, but they trusted him. He punished fairly. He intervened when bullying crossed lines, and stopped fights with a single look. Teachers praised his "leadership."
They never noticed how tightly his fists clenched behind his back, or never saw how his jaw locked when a student laughed too loudly in the halls.
Anger lived in him like a second heart. the leash was not allowed to snap. But sometimes the pressure leaked. When he was angry, the air thickened. Students reported headaches after arguments with him, mirrors cracked without impact. The bells rang late or early depending on his mood. Once, a boy who insulted him woke up screaming, claiming the walls had whispered his secrets all night. The Head Prefect never raised a hand. The school chose the students.
Always at night.
The names appeared etched into his skin just below the collarbone—burning letters only he could see. They never stayed long. By morning, they were gone. But the memories remained. Some students were cruel, some broken, while some innocent in ways that made the job unbearable.
The school did not care, neither, eventually, did he, that realization terrified him more than anything else.
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Part iii
After curfew, Blackthorne Academy changes.
The halls lengthen, corners repeat, doors open into rooms that don't exist during the day. The portraits whisper instructions, the floorboards pulse like veins.
That is when the Head Prefect moves. He doesn't stalk. Instead he waits for his call. Sometimes he stands at the end of a hallway, perfectly still, until the student notices him. Sometimes he knocks gently, politely, as if conducting rounds. Sometimes he calls their name in a voice so calm they don't think to run.
He never chases anyone the school brings them to him, In the abandoned detention wing, beneath the chapel, inside the rooms erased from maps—he does what the leash was designed to do. There is anger in it. Anger at the faculty who never get their hands dirty. and angry for himself for how easy it has become.
He tells himself it's mercy and he's preventing something worse. But some nights, when the student cries or begs or curses his name, he feels something else bloom inside him...Relief.
And that is when he knows how far he has fallen. There are nights he scrubs his hands until they bleed. Nights he stares at his reflection, waiting for the monster to look back—and realizing it already has. Nights he dreams of chains tightening around his throat instead of his wrist. The leash does not sleep.
And neither, truly, does he.
He knows one day a student will arrive who doesn't break. Someone the school can't digest. The one who looks at him without fear. Someone who makes the leash tremble.
When that happens, Blackthorne will either be freed—
Or it will finally devour him too.